George Verver 12/03/2011
The is the 2nd installment of the 17-part Knowing the Master series.
Today’s text is taken from John 1:35-51.
Joh 1:35-51 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. (36) When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!" (37) When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. (38) Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" (39) Come, he replied, "and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. (40) Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. (41) The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). (42) And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter). (43) The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." (44) Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. (45) Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." (46) Nazareth! Can anything good come from there? Nathanael asked. "Come and see," said Philip. (47) When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." (48) How do you know me? Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." (49) Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." (50) Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." (51) He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."
George Verver, the founder of OM (Operational Mobilization) is with us today. (I remember seeing the globe.,) His has a world map on his shirt,
(To check out the new edition of Operation World.)
Japan is one of the least evangelized nation in Asia. God wants us to pray intelligently. George has 5000+ Facebook friends. He is getting into Twitter and YouTube. When we merge all of them, it’s called YouTwitFace.
Jesus told us to go into the world and share the Gospel. OM initially chose to go to the hard to preach places. They also pray for people to go to the hard places. But many of the God’s chosen frozen do not feel the fire of the Holy Spirit. Some of the hardest places to preach the Gospel are North Korea, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Laos, Tibet, etc.
In Mat 9, we read about praying to the Lord of the Harvest to send labourers.
George’s grandfather was an atheist from the Netherlands. His other grandfather was an alcoholic.
George urges us to pray for the people in the music and movie industries. Many movies were made and many of them were horrendous. God uses movie and music. We need workers.
George got into troubles and a woman prayed for him to be a missionary. C.S Lewis said we tend to think but not to act. If we keep thinking and feeling without acting, someday we will be unable to act. George described this as spiritual schizophrenia where we live like a Christian among our Christian friends and live differently otherwise. There is a deadly disease among the Christians. We need to be doing something instead of just thinking, feelnig and responding.
Jesus called his twelve disciples. The same thing is happening today. God calls us to share out faith and to act.
There is an Jesus movie in India in 12 Indian languages. Hundreds of thousands came to Christ from this movie. The upper caste and middle caste people can view the DVDs in private. Thousands of churches have been set up and as many as 100 schools have been set up for the people fo the lowest caste known as the untouchables.
Do we have a spiritual birthday? Do we know when we accepted Jesus? The date is not important. But the more important thing is that we have the assurance of our salvations.
We are the in midst of one of the greatest harvest period in history.
George attended a Billy Graham evangelistic meeting in Madison Square Garden along with 20,000 people.
Walk every single day in the grace of God. In our stupidity and weakness, we sin.
We are not seeing more men in the mission field because they could not overcome their sexual issues.
“Sin not!” The Father will forgive us and give us strength.
If anyone were to follow God, we need to deny ourselves and carry the cross.
George in a moment a weakness stepped into a wrong place. In 10 minutes, he ran out and went into a phone booth to pray. He wanted to be alone. He didn’t feel forgiven. But 20 minutes later, a man came to him in the bus stop and asked him how to be saved.
George said he doesn’t mind people not getting people to Christ lately but he finds it a problem if people are not even trying.
Jonathan his grandson went into the ship for 3 months and his life was changed. He changed so much George could not believe it. He started reading books George didn’t expect him to read. He signed up to be his gopher for 1 year in 2012.
Tony Compolo said grandchildren is a special gift for not killing our children.
God is doing something new. There is like a revolution of generosity. It is harder to find those who give than those who go. George wanted to honour those who gave.
George is thinking of setting up of the 100 million club. Only a church that has shared the Gospel to 100 million people can join this club. A lot of people like to give money to build schools. Many people have the Gospel in their own languages and even movies in their own languages. But there are many other people who do not have the Gospel in their own language. We need to saturate the world with the Word of God.
If giving the Gospel is not enough, what do we say if we don’t give at all!
We must be obedient to the Bible and share the Gospel.
George did not have a good marriage as a young Christian. The wife told him he ministered to a lot of people but wondered if he could minister to her. God broke him down. He repented and changed.
Tony Compolo sent one email about a family in a storm. Even the adults were uneasy. Then the realize the 7-year old is upstairs alone. They ran up to find her looking out the window. She said she thought God was taking her pictures.
God sees everything we do. He has a complete digital collection of our lives.
God calls people in to specific ministry – some are involved in the local church, some are in the marketplace.
Going out to the mission fields is not a masochistic exercise. In his 56 years, he never knew a day of suffering. God was in his life and God blesses him.
In Isaiah 6 , we read how Isaiah broke down and submitted to God told God “Here am I send me.” This is a simple prayer of availability and not of geography.
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